Huck Seed, 31 Others Advance in NBC National Heads Poker Championship

Round 1 of the 2009 NBC National Heads Up Poker Championship is done. Some notes:

:: Obviously the big story of the day was Layne Flack's DUI no-show. His 2009 so far is the equivalent to Baumer's epic meltdown at the U.S. Nationals. Not good.

:: One story we actually will follow sort of is Vanessa Rousso's "journey." Her profiles was "raised" a bit with the SI Swimsuit pic, and she's actually very relevant for this tournament because of the GoDaddy.com commercial. After beating Doyle Brunson in Round 1, if she can tackle Phil Ivey today and make a deep run, Rousso could be the epicenter of talk for this year's tourney.

:: While it probably won't get much T.V. coverage, one of the more interesting matches today is Ilari "ziigmund" Sahamies v. Bertrand Grospellier. Sahamies because he's not only nuts but one of the best online poker players in the world today, and Grospellier because he's one of the best live tournament players in the world today.

:: The other really interesting match is the other online superstar, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, who takes on Barry Greenstein.

:: Jerry Yang actually won (!) his first round match and plays John Phan.

:: And finally, of course, our pick to win it all, Huck Seed, won again, and will go up against Gus Hansen in what would be a compelling match if Seed ever showed some personality.